Half-blind UK widow commits suicide after incapacity benefit cut

A partially-blind widow, who suffered crippling back pain for over a decade, committed suicide after her incapacity benefit was cut because state assessors claimed she was fit to work.

Following a two-minute assessment, private firm Atos Healthcare
concluded Jacqueline Harris was fit to work despite the fact she
had trouble walking and suffered constant, excruciating back
pain.Her incapacity benefit was
subsequently axed by the government, which pays the firm to
conduct fitness-for-work assessments.

Harris, a former nurse who had claimed incapacity benefit for a
number of years, was awaiting a serious spinal operation when
Atos assessed her. According to the deceased’s sister, the Atos
employee asked Harris one question during the interview – whether
she was capable of catching a bus.

The firm has been the focus of a firestorm of criticism in recent
times, with mounting claims that vulnerable and unwell people are
being wrongly proposed for work, and are forced to endure
exasperating and upsetting medical interviews.

‘Atos should be shot’

Fifty-three-year-old Harris was discovered dead in her home in
south Gloucestershire in November 2013, with a hand written note
attached to her chest stressing she did not wish to be
resuscitated. She took her own life just a few weeks before an
appeal hearing had been scheduled with the Department for Work
and Pensions (DWP).

Harris’ sister told the
Daily Mail the family received a letter about the hearing a month
after the former nurse died.

“I didn't tell them she had died and went along myself. I
said to them ‘I'm disgusted’. Atos should be shot,” she
said.

Speaking outside the Bristol court, where Harris’ inquest was
held, Christine Norman said her sister’s decline was sparked by
the DWP’s decision to replace her incapacity welfare allowance
with Jobseeker’s Allowance.

“It gave her no hope. She was defeated. What hope did she
have?” Norman asked.

Norman added the government has since ruled Atos’ decision to
declare her sister fit for work was wrong.

Throughout the inquest, the court was told Harris had suffered an
array of different injuries and disabilities since the 1990s. Her
trouble began with a fall during work, causing injured discs in
her neck and back. She
also endured chronic pain in her hands, resulting from a vicious
dog bite and partial blindness following a severe bang to the
head.

As her back pain worsened over time, Harris sought assistance and
advice from doctors, attended pain management classes and engaged
in physiotherapy.

Following the DWP’s decision that she was fit to work, Harris
pleaded with the body saying she was awaiting an intensive back
operation. But her poignant pleas were reportedly ignored.

Speaking at her sister’s inquest, Norman said she knew her sister
wouldn’t be able to cope with the pain she was forced to endure
close to her death. She also sharply criticized the government
for failing to offer Harris the assistance she so desperately
needed.

Over two million recipients of employment and disability-related
welfare are currently having their ability to work assessed by
Atos. Current ministers
insist it is crucial those who are fit to work have their
benefits cut in a bid to force them to seek employment.

Earlier this month, it emerged that the Department for Work and
Pensions (DWP) has carried out 60 separate reviews into deaths
linked to benefit cuts in the past three years. Shocking cases
reveal a spike in suicides and health deterioration resulting
from welfare cuts.

In 2013, Amnesty International UK passed a resolution denouncing
the government’s assault on sick and disabled Britons’ human
rights.

The resolution sought to “halt the abrogation of the human
rights of sick and disabled people by the ruling coalition
government and its associated corporate contractors.”

Disability specialist
Samuel Miller wrote to the office of the prosecutor at the ICC in
The Hague in 2012, inquiring as to whether he could file a
complaint against Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)
ministers for the “draconian welfare reforms and the resultant
deaths” of Britain’s “most vulnerable.”

He believed there were
grounds for such a case, in light of a request for a Greek
austerity trial at The Hague.

Three months ago, Miller
asked the UN to open an official investigation into the United
Kingdom's benefit-sanctions regime.